Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: mellow

Greetings to the first day of October. Sunday finds us awash in blue sky in Ashlandia, where the apples are plentiful and the deer are eating well. We saw twenty-three of them around town yesterday while running errands, usually in small herds of four to six.

It’s a chilly day despite sunshine that stings the eyes with its brilliance. 48 F now, we’re doing 66 F today.

October has special meaning for me. I joined the military in October, 1974. Twenty-one years later, I retired in October. And my wife and I bought this house in October of 2006.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s rain postponed our E.T. showing to this evening. This is the second rescheduling; two weeks ago, the outdoor movie screening was postponed to yesterday because of hazardous air quality due to wildfire smoke.

Keeping this short today, so I’ll just go with the music. The Neurons have sowed the seeds of “Wheel in the Sky”, a 1977 song by Journey. I’ve romantically identified with the song’s idea that everything changes quickly and in surprising ways. As Journey portrays in the song, most of us can be anywhere tomorrow. I was in the military in ’77 and wholly agreed with the idea that I could be anywhere the next day. My Air Force units were usually tagged for mobility. That meant that we could be deployed to elsewhere as needed. Although stability has become my norm in this stage of my civilian life, weather disasters or personal upheaval such as health issues can force a shift with little warning. I’ve seen it happen with friends and family.

Beyond that, I moved numerous times as a child, because my father was in the military. Much of that was overseas for Dad, but Mom and we kids remained stateside. Dad was enlisted and that pay wasn’t much. So Mom drove us to live with relatives in Chicago, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. Then Dad would return and we’d head to Texas, California, Virginia, Ohio. Then I joined the military. For the next twenty-one years, I was assigned across the US and around the world on temporary, special, and permanent assignments. Eventually, I retired in California and moved to Oregon.

Remain positive, be strong, and keep chill. Let me finish this coffee and then I’ll kick off the day. Have a better one. Here’s the music. Cheers

October 1, 2023 2

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: positive

Let’s close our eyes and bow our heads; September, 2023, is passing. Today is Saturday, September 30, 2023. A fresh month — October — begins tomorrow.

“Alexa, weather,” I say.

“It’s 49 degrees in Ashland. Today’s high will be 62 degrees. Today’s forecast includes showers.”

I’m boiling her response down. Alexa is one of three sources for my daily weather info. The other two are my home system and wunderground.com online. I also often scan MSN’s weather forecast for us.

I do this because we’re located on the fringe of a small town, about three and a half miles long, with a population of about 20,000. I live on the southern end. The town is in a valley alongside Interstate 5. The southern end is where the valley pinches together and becomes a pass. For all these reasons, getting precise weather forecasts is troublesome. We’re usually a few degrees warmer than the forecast in the summer and a few degrees colder in fall and winter.

I don’t doubt Alexa’s forecast for today. It rained off and on through the night. Rainclouds are as thick as a Black Friday shopping crowd. Those clouds don’t look like they’re going to wander off without dropping more rain on us.

The cats are happier and more mellow with this weather. Both come in for shelter, washing before napping. Papi’s preference is the master bed where I keep a folded blanket at the foot for the cats. Tucker will used that at night, but it’s Papi’s during the daytime. Tucker prefers being with us in the daytime. He’ll haunt the desk in the snug, sleeping to the right of me, shoving around papers and rearranging equipment. I enjoy having him there, with his cute little black and white face and long, whirly whiskers at repose as he sleeps.

My wife and I have plans for the evening. Scienceworks is doing an outdoor showing of the movie E.T. Show starts at 6:30 PM. There will be food and beverage trucks, along with an ice cream truck.

Forecasts for that period tell us it’ll be colder by then, and it’ll be raining. Should be fun.

My wife particularly wants to go because she only saw E.T. once. This was when we were stationed on Okinawa, Japan. We saw a VHS bootleg copy of the movie, and the production values were terrible. Bootleg copies of films and TV shows was how we saw a lot of things in those pre-net, pre satellite TV days. Phoning home was still a major production that required us to go to the USO and use one of their expensive long-distance lines.

Well, with talk of “phone home” and memories of the way it was in 1982, Les Neurons have cranked up ELO’s 1977 song, “Telephone Line” for the morning mental music stream (Trademark fantasy). Makes sense, and I will allow it.

Stay pos and be cool, and strong. I’m refreshing my coffee — do you want a topoff? Here’s the music. Let the real day commence. Cheers

September 30, 2023 0

Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts

The net can be a dizzying roller coaster. Bad news headlines, followed by humor on a friend’s blog, then disastrous breaking news, chased by sweet floof photos, which give way to dire predictions, trailed by fascinating new scientific or historic findings, war and political updates, and book reviews.

I ride throughout the day, breaking off to soothe myself with my personal writing, and then releasing all the pent tension with a relaxing game or two (or four). You know, Wordle. Spelling Bee. Sudoku.

How different from my youth. We watched television together in the family room — ‘in color’ — so it was a consensus choice. Five channels were available: PBS, the big three, and one UHF channel that washed in and out on a sea of static. Sitcoms (“Green Acres”), dramas (“Gunsmoke) and thrillers (“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”) entertained us, or the Movie of the Week, delivering Psycho, Seven Days in May, and The Sound of Music, among a plethora of others.

Then I consider how different my mother’s childhood was. She was a little girl in Turin, Iowa, during the Depression and World War II, eating popcorn and listening to a radio with her family, or going to the hardware store to watch “I Love Lucy” on the only television in their small town.

Reaching further back, I struggle with visualizing how it was in my grandfather’s youth. He helped establish Turin a few decades before Mom was born. Guess I’ll surf the net about it and see what I find.

Once on the roller coaster, getting off it isn’t easy.

September 26, 2023 0

Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

I enjoy people watching, especially at the coffee shop. Everyone has a story. It’s not always clear, so I’ll make one up for them, if they’re interesting enough.

Well, Austin is interesting enough. About six foot one, pale skin, moderate build, neat strawberry blond hair, he’s dressed for the outdoors and carries a full pack, a serious hiking and camping pack, white ear pods inserted. First time I saw him in April, I figured that he was another off the Pacific Crest Trail. It runs through this area and many hiking it will pop into Ashland. See the movie Wild or read the book by the same name, and you’ll see my town featured. That’s our plaza in the link I posted.

(Side note to all that: the city posted where they’d be filming the movie so we could avoid the area because of road closures and delays, and all that. You know what that did, right? Also, to have the right season depicted, the leaves had already departed the trees, so they made leaves, attached them to the naked branches, and then removed them after filming.)

Well, Austin remains here months later. I’ve wondered why. He comes into the coffee shop several times a day while I’m there. He’d usually just drink cold water. Sometimes hot tea. Rarely buys more. I’ve seen people offer him money, and he always turns it down. He only speaks to the baristas, which is how I know his name. He’s told me thank you as I was leaving and he was entering and I held the door. Thrice. That’s it.

I sense he wants to be alone, so I leave him alone. Also, I’m there to write, so I don’t want to strike up conversations. I initially thought he was just recharging his batteries. Then, waiting for something to arrive in the mail. Now I think he’s on the run, and hiding out in Ashlandia. The question is, why? Who is after him? What will happen when they find him?

Whatever, he’ll probably show up in a story sometime. That’s just how it goes when you cross a writer’s path.

August 13, 2023 2

Alternate Realities

This is not a review but a brief commentary about Barbie.

I did an informal poll last night when sitting with my beer gang. These are generally enlightened and educated, elderly men and women — our youngest is 61, and I’m in the middle at 67 — who retired from professions as university professors, botanists, biologists, medical doctors, NASA scientists, aerospace engineers, high school teachers, database administrators, software engineers, and forensics scientists. Yes, we have at least two of each in our group. They’re all ‘woke’ to various degrees. None of the women were there last night, just the men.

So I did a survey. I was surprised that none had seen the Barbie movie, and only one wanted to see it. All of them enthused about Oppenheimer, though.

I’d seen Barbie and enjoyed it. I had moderate interest in the doll’s story and the battles against the patriarchy — though very real — and matriarchy, toxic masculinity, and false choices dumped on people because of gender. No, my thing was the alternate realities aspects, the other existence where Barbie and Ken and their brethren resided, versus our reality.

I’ve always been a sucker for these. Loved Pleasantville for that reason, along with Men In Black, the original Matrix, Flash Gordon, 12 Monkeys, Ground Hog Day, Inception, and the whole Doctor Who series. Add Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, Good Omens, and Papergirls to the list of worthy TV series about other dimensions. I’ve probably forgotten same, but want to stress, these are not about alternate history or future science fiction. The core of these offerings to me must be that these movies and television shows actively involve other dimensions. Things are happening there. Those involved in our reality don’t know it, but are solidly face-planted into the other reality and must cope with the new reality that there are other realities. I love the genre because it challenges our certitude about reality, which I find rude, arrogant, and short-sighted. Of course, that approach works for most, so, shrug.

Barbie worked for me for that reason. Besides solid acting and production values, the expected jokes and observations about genitals and identity, the paradigm shifts faced were clearly exposed. There was a too neat, too clean resolution to that — but, hey, it’s a comedy — and a I-can-skip-the-lecture at the end delivered by Rhea Perlman as Barbie’s inventor, but it was solid fun about realities colliding.

I recommend the movie and pity those who won’t see it for whatever premature reason they’ve devised. Cheers

August 10, 2023 2

Tiw’s Day’s Theme Music

Tiw’s Day is here at last, and the God couldn’t be happier about it. Breaking out in tears, the one-handed God thanked everyone with deep sincerity, not leaving anyone unmentioned, and then resumed his duties.

For those keeping score at home, this is August 8, 2023 in Ashlandia, where the train’s horn is loud and persistent against the quiet day. The sun’s influence and fronts have combined to breach 73 F right now, and they vow to keep going into the low nineties. Good to have goals, even for the sun and weather system.

(Meanwhile, the sun, upon reading this, asked himself in a bewildered murmur, “What’s he talking about? I don’t have goals. Do I have goals?” It gave him something to ponder while sipping his coffee.)

I have Van Halen performing “Best of Both Worlds” in the morning mental music stream (trademark TBD). Came upon that song as I noodled through my clothing needs for the day. Be walking in the morning, when it’s cooler. Than I’ll be in the coffee shop, where they like to pump up the A/C because it’s hot behind the counter, then walking again, and it’ll be in the eighties by then, before going to the movie theater, where it’s icy cold as deep space. We’re seeing Barbie today. I’m looking forward to watching Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie. Always enjoyed her on “SNL”, especially when she was talking about her alien abduction experiences.

Anyway, I was thinking that I’d be wearing shorts, of course. It’s summer in Ashlandia. I wear shorts everywhere, unless it’s declared to be something semi-formal or above or the wife says something like, “You’re not wearing shorts.” “Of course I am,” I always reply before getting up to change. The shirt was the issue here. How heavy should the shirt be to meet my various needs? I’d be inside and out, and would thus need something to — ready? — cope with the best of both worlds. Yeah. That’s how The Neurons do it.

Be calm, stay positive, keep that strength up, and keep moving forward. It’s getting to be a long list, yeah, the things you must do to remain sane and healthy, hopeful, and optimistic, the things you must do to put in the work. I’ve have coffee but I’m having more, okay? Here’s the tune. Let’s go with it. Cheers

August 8, 2023 0

Sunday’s Theme Music

Today’s Mood: weary

Q: Is weary a mood?

Sunday, July 9, 2023, has landed on us. Fact of the day: the 14th Amendment was adopted on this day in the US back in 1868. Part of the amendment was dealing with reconstruction, black voters, and the Dred Scott decision. Northern Republicans preferred that blacks not be allowed to vote in the structure and demographics established before the Civil War because southern states would have gained substantial power, creating its own set of problems. These southern states just fought a war to leave the union, and their loss was going to be rewarded with more power? No, that didn’t fly. Hence, the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” And off we went, all fixed, right?

Yeah, it’s been a helluva merry-go-round. There are always groups against others having equal rights under the law. More recently, GOP legislators have led creative ways to make voting a problem for the people who don’t vote for them, citing the US Constitution. It reads, in part, “When in the course of human events, political leaders decide they don’t like what people are reading, or fear that some other race will come to dominate, or don’t like it when people declare themselves to be some other gender or prefer a sexual orientation other than what’s spelled out in the First Amendment of the Bible of the United States, then that party and its political leaders have the right to pretend that in the name of freedom and God, they have the right under said document to restrict others from doing these things because gosh, darn, those things are different than what they grew up with, and they don’t have to take it, and have the right to cry and throw tantrums about anything they don’t like until they’re blue in the face, just like Jesus would do.”

And by using that authority as provided and intended, and wholly in the Founding Fathers’ spirit, that’ll fix everything. Everyone will be happy, and peace will rule, and the United States will be Great Again, #1 in everything in the world, which can be achieved by just pretending that other countries don’t really exist, and if they do, they can’t be as good as America because they’re not America.

Whew, glad that’s all cleared up.

It’s cooling this week. 68 F now, the mercury won’t rise to 90 F today. Fine by me. I enjoy cooler hot summer days. I should be happy, then, because the weather conjurers have proclaimed that our high temps will be in the 80s most of the coming week. Side note: we’ve yet to reach 100 F this year in Ashlandia, where the sidewalks are cracked and the people are pissed off. Hope I haven’t jinxed us by mentioning it.

The Neurons have plugged Elton John’s cover of “Pinball Wizard” by The Who into the morning mental music stream. The Who song came out in 1969, part of the rock opera, or ropera, as we say in these days, called Tommy. I was thirteen, and just loved that song with its story of a blind kid being a pinball champion, a story backed by dramatic guitars, swooping bass lines, and crashing drums. A few years later, a movie was made of the album, Tommy, and Elton John was selected to sing the vocals on “Pinball Wizard”, and Bob’s yer uncle.

Stay pos, keep a sense of humor, and lead us not into temptation. I’ve had coffee, thanks, but do help yourself to some. Here’s the music. Cheers

July 9, 2023 0

Sa’day’s Theme Music

Talk around the coffee table yesterday was that everyone wants to go see Asteroid City. Terrific cast. Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Tom Hanks. If you’re a Wes fan, critics suggest you’ll like the film. If you’re not his fan, you might want to pass. We are his fans, so we might go. The subject is in the air. Don’t know where the currents will take it.

It’s Sa’day, July 8, 2023. Lots of room left in July at this point. Summer has slowed for us here in Ashlandia, where the day gets hot and the nights get cool. 66 F now, we’re expecting 92 around our homestead by mid-aft. I miss the annual blueberry pickin’. It would’ve already been done, and we’d have pints of fresh blueberries in frig and freezer. Some baking would’ve been done. But the drought and wildfire smoke killed it two years ago. Too hot, too dry, then too smoky. All conspired to take production down. Bushes died, and COVID took the heart out of it for the folks running it. Gone are those 6:30 arrivals at the gate, sipping hot coffee in cold mountain air as the sun pulls itself clear of the mountains and turns on the heat. Gone is the cold feel of wet berries in your fingers and the hunt down the rows for a bush that speaks to you. Gone is the hushed laughing and gossiping, more expected in a church than in a field picking berries, but all seemed to approach it as a solemn event. Well, almost all. There seemed to be one each year who had to be talking loudly on their cell phone while picking berries.

Thinking of those things reminded me of “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders. Released in 1982, it’s about change. I’d been discussing change with others on a previous evening. I’ve seen change in Ashlandia, a shift in priorities, the decline of traditional events, the rise of doings that don’t matter to us. Our connections with the city and area are loose and breaking. We’re drifting away from it and no longer feel like we’re a part of it. Not as we were before.

I thought of Mom’s place in Penn Hills, PA, after that conversation. Her place has changed through the years, certainly. New siding, porches replaced, etc. Yeah, those physical changes took place, but its essence has remained steadfast. That’s what disillusions us with Ashlandia: its essence seems to be changing. Anyway, Les Neurons wedged “My City Was Gone” into the morning mental music stream, so here we are.

Well, stay pos, and muster the courage and strength to do it again. I’m building my energy to get out there with a strong dose of coffee. It’s what’s for breakfast, along with oatmeal. Here’s the music, and awaaayyy we gooo.

Cheers

July 8, 2023 2

Friday’s Theme Music

As we slept, the overlords declared, “This will be Friday, June 23, 2023. Let us see how they take to the change.” So far as I can tell, the reality shuffle didn’t to anything to me, other than that flash in the night when the date and time was established. When you think about it, moving billions of people to another reality is impressive, especially as it takes so little energy and effort. They siphon off less than a quarter teaspoon of the needed energy off of every individual being shifted. Leaves a few people feeling groggy, sure. That’s why the overlords introduced us to coffee.

It’s a warmish June morning, 53 F right now. Heading up the scale to 80 F today. Thunderstorms were being mentioned yesterday when the weather they talked about the forecast. That word left their vocabulary now. Probably because they weren’t expecting the reality shift. Few usually are.

I was chatting with friends the other night. One is an unbridled cat fellow. The other is the father of a daughter who fosters. That’s what started the entire chat; she’d sent pix to him of her new foster. She’d already had a little singleton she was bottling feeding and bringing along. This week, another singleton was introduced so the poor little fellow has a play and cuddle buddy.

Remembering this convo this morning prompted The Neurons to inject David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fires)” from 1982. A little rock, techno, and glam folded together, it was written for the movie, Cat People. Wouldn’t say the song is a ‘usual’ Bowie recipe; he frequently reinvented himself. No telling what he would come up with the next time a song or album was released.

Fire up your corporeal being. Stay pos. Drink some coffee, tea, etc., right? Something to light the body and spirit’s burners. Here’s the music. Liftoff.

June 23, 2023 0

Flair

I wear a hat on most days. It’s an olive green Tilly, my second one. Several pieces of flair adorn it.

I encountered a new young barista at the coffee shop today, Teagan. She told me how much she likes my hat and all the stuff on it. I smiled, replying, “That’s my flair.”

Saying, “Oh, my God,” Teagan began laughing.

“Office Space,” I supplied.

“Yes, yes, yes!”

She and I reminisced about the movie’s big moments and enduring legacy. The red stapler. The consultants. Cubicles. Destroying the annoying printer. TPS reports. She loved the movie, she said, especially the ending.

Yes, it worked for me, too, when it came out in 1999. I’d retired from the military and was working for a startup in Palo Alto, CA, at that point. Written and directed by Mike Judge, starring Ron Livingstone, Jennifer Aniston, and Stephen Root, the movie spoke to me about corporate culture and management. Remembering it now after the convo with the barista, I sit here grinning, ready to break into a laugh.